Effect of air gap on the performance of building-integrated photovoltaics

Ventilation of photovoltaic (PV) modules installed over or beside a building envelope can reduce the module temperature and increase the electrical conversion efficiency. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method has been used to assess the effect of the size of air gap between PV modules and the building envelope on the PV performance in terms of cell temperature for a range of roof pitches and panel lengths and to determine the minimum air gap that is required to minimise PV overheating. It has been found that the mean PV temperature and the maximum PV temperature associated with hot spots decrease with the increase in pitch angle and air gap. The mean PV temperature also decreases with increasing panel length for air gaps greater than or equal to 0.08m whereas the maximum PV temperature generally increases with panel length. To reduce possible overheating of PV modules and hot spots near the top of modules requires a minimum air gap of 0.12–0.15m for multiple module installation and 0.14–0.16m for single module installation depending on roof pitches.